U heard it here 1st (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/french-election-blog-2012/2012/may/06/french-election-results-sarkozy-hollande) (or not, as the case may be)

OK, 'whups' is a bit strong - 52% vs 48% in the second round - but still.

Sectionfive

06-05-2012, 08:21 PM

good fucking riddance

grizzleb

07-05-2012, 12:55 AM

Great news. Hollande I'm sure will only be marginally better in concrete terms, but I'll bet he's a lot less odious a character.

crackerjack

07-05-2012, 09:19 AM

And poor Carla now finds herself married to an unemployed irritable dwarf. This really isn't what she signed up for.

Mr. Tea

07-05-2012, 09:25 AM

And poor Carla now finds herself married to an unemployed irritable dwarf. This really isn't what she signed up for.

Facebook x-post! ;)

Isn't Sarko now leader of the opposition? Or is he retiring altogether?

IdleRich

07-05-2012, 01:59 PM

I guess this kinda makes up for Boris winning in London. Let's see if it makes much difference - and how much it will piss off the all-powerful bond markets.
Everyone has seen this I guess?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1HCFHjLndQ

padraig (u.s.)

08-05-2012, 12:02 AM

Hollande is just a rerun of Mitterrand (who, people forget, imposed an austerity of his own in 1983: tournant de la rigueur (http://seekingalpha.com/article/518401-the-french-election-impact-on-markets)) innit, i.e. pure establishment, moreso even than Sarko probably, albeit it left-center establishment. I think the Greek electoral results are a lot more interesting and, depending on your pov, heartening/troubling. left and (literally fascist) far-right coming into power in the wake of catastrophic economic and resulting social upheaval. what bit of history does that remind you of? granted Greece, like Italy and Spain, has always had very strong left and anarchist movements as well as a strong right, street-fighting has always been very common, but this is different in that they're gaining mainstream electoral success, a complete rejection of the status quo of the last 40 years (since the dictatorship, that is). at the very least you'd think there's a strong chance Greek will leave the Euro, but it's also a screaming alarm bell for the rest of Europe. Marie L-P pulled almost 1/5 of the vote after all.

we'll see where things are in a year and a half when the next German elections come up.

baboon2004

08-05-2012, 05:33 PM

what i don't understand is why the markets are only now getting shaky, whereas they should have been shaky ever since an election was announced. Surely anyone with half a brain could predict that the Greek elections would deliver a massive 'fuck you' to austerity, and market analysts specialise in predicting what will happen in the future. they're a bit shit at it, aren't they?

Sectionfive

08-05-2012, 06:58 PM

It's only a political crisis when the wrong politicians are elected innit

Mr. Tea

08-05-2012, 07:04 PM

Hollande is just a rerun of Mitterrand (who, people forget, imposed an austerity of his own in 1983: tournant de la rigueur (http://seekingalpha.com/article/518401-the-french-election-impact-on-markets))

As the article points out, it's difficult to balance books when most of your policies are going to increase expenditure. Do you happen to have any idea where Hollande stands on foreign, and especially defence, policy? France has a huge military budget, about the same as the UK's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures), so an easy way to save some euros would be reduce involvement in overseas adventuring. Though of course this would make France unpopular with other NATO/UN members that would have to take up the slack in various places and I dunno how popular it would be even with left-of-centre voters, especially in light of the recent Mohammed Merah case.

padraig (u.s.)

09-05-2012, 02:27 AM

^he don't really have much of a prior FP record. he's pledged all troops out of Afghan by the end of 2012 but Sarko had pledged end of 2013 so that's not exactly a radical departure. his line on Iran is basically identical to Sarko's. wouldn't be surprised if he backed an eventual intervention in Syria either. oh + I doubt he'll pull back French presence in Africa, on the grounds that no French president ever does.

the thing is he wants to raise spending while simultaneously reducing deficit. I'm no economist but I just don't see how the hell he can do that. he can talk a big anti-austerity game all he wants but let's see what he's saying + doing a year from now.

padraig (u.s.)

09-05-2012, 02:35 AM

It's only a political crisis when the wrong politicians are elected innit

you've got it backwards. politicians elected only ever reflect back the severity of what's already going on.

craner

09-05-2012, 01:37 PM

I was unhappy that Sarko lost -- not really because I thought he deserved to win this time, but for the lost opportunity of his regime. I won't go into economics or labour law or Anglo-Saxon models or anything like that, but in terms of French foreign policy, he was different to his predecessors and (by definition) comparatively positive, I think. Even rhetorically to junk the Mitterand-Chirac Francophone (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Silent-Accomplice-Frances-Rwandan-Genocide/dp/1845112474/ref=sr_1_22?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336566508&sr=1-22)/Quai d'Orsay (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Betrayal-France-Arabs-David-Pryce-Jones/dp/1594031517/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336566551&sr=1-3)doctrinal tendencies was an extremely good and overdue move. To offer Bernard Kouchner the role of Foreign Minister was a bold and imaginative thing to do.

Sadly, he was undone by The Crash, Carla Bruni and Marine le Pen. The French junked him because he lost the plot, not because they did not believe in what he originally stood for -- which had a constituency, even if he didn't.

Mr. Tea

09-05-2012, 02:20 PM

oh + I doubt he'll pull back French presence in Africa, on the grounds that no French president ever does.

Yeah, I've heard some pretty murky-sounding things about France's exercise of soft and not-so-soft power in its old African colonies.

baboon2004

09-05-2012, 03:42 PM

Sadly, he was undone by The Crash, Carla Bruni and Marine le Pen. The French junked him because he lost the plot, not because they did not believe in what he originally stood for -- which had a constituency, even if he didn't.

Yep, people thus inclined found someone even more racist than him to vote for. Poor Sarkozy.

craner

09-05-2012, 04:32 PM

Yeah, frog-munching fascists.

baboon2004

10-05-2012, 10:40 AM

Indeed. Snail butcherers.

Mr. Tea

10-05-2012, 12:22 PM

I like snails. Not to eat, I mean I find them very endearing.

blacktulip

10-05-2012, 12:58 PM

I like them to eat. If you're going to pick on France, music seems a better place to start.

baboon2004

10-05-2012, 01:06 PM

Dunno, they've had a few bright moments in the past.

Anyways, wasn't picking on France really - they kicked Sarkozy out, and good on them for it.

luka

10-05-2012, 01:13 PM

craner likes sarkozy though. they once shared a candlelit dinner for two in a little out the way bistro in provence.

padraig (u.s.)

11-05-2012, 01:40 AM

France's exercise of soft and not-so-soft power in its old African colonies.

it's their way of feeling like they've still got a hand in the game as a major player. oh + to reap economic benefits from controlling the CFA zone. actually one of the things I'm curious to see about Hollande is his position on devaluing the CFA franc.

Mitterrand presided over both arming the Hutu regime before the genocide + even worse arguably trying to prop it up during the genocide (see: Operation Turquoise). Chirac presided over a very dubious intervention in the Ivory Coast civil war. etc etc. I do agree w/Craner junking some of that attitude was a positive but it's not like Sarko replaced it w/anything better.

Slothrop

11-05-2012, 09:20 AM

it's their way of feeling like they've still got a hand in the game as a major player.
Good thing noone else would do anything like that, eh?

Mr. Tea

11-05-2012, 10:27 AM

Good thing noone else would do anything like that, eh?

Monbiot to thread, please...

Sectionfive

11-05-2012, 11:29 AM

politicians elected only ever reflect back the severity of what's already going on.

Absolutely, though I was implying we're only getting the 'political crisis' narrative because they didn't elect parties willing to keep the show on the road.

Mr. Tea

13-01-2013, 12:48 AM

France goes to red alert over anti-Islamist military actions in Africa (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20999348)

baboon2004

13-01-2013, 01:47 PM

Bizarre - I've started brushing up my French in earnest this past week (for employment purposes), and it's the first time in a long while that France has been top of the international agenda. It makes reading Liberation more than just an academic exercise, which is very useful.

Mr. Tea

13-01-2013, 05:14 PM

The is whole PKK assassination thing is straight out of Freddy Forsyth, isn't it?

What sort of employment are you looking at? The French economy's kind of fucked and looks like it's only going to get more fucked with Hollande at the wheel...

craner

16-01-2013, 02:49 PM

Hitting Islamists in Mali makes slightly more sense than boosting Islamists in Libya. Mind you, Libya sprung this whole mess in the first place.

Mr. Tea

16-01-2013, 07:01 PM

And now this huge anti-gay marriage demo in Paris. All a bit depressing really.

baboon2004

17-01-2013, 05:26 PM

The is whole PKK assassination thing is straight out of Freddy Forsyth, isn't it?

What sort of employment are you looking at? The French economy's kind of fucked and looks like it's only going to get more fucked with Hollande at the wheel...

There's quite a few jobs around to do with French-speaking Africa that look interesting - I've definitely got a better chance if I have confidence in my language skills, though I'm never gonna get near fluent.

I'd not heard about that demo. If only people would use all that energy to do something non-hateful.

Mr. Tea

04-04-2013, 11:05 AM

Barely ten months after his election, François Hollande is a lame duck President. He is even more unpopular than Nicolas Sarkozy was at the same stage of the presidency. The French people elected him in May 2012 because they had had enough with Sarkozy’s right-wing politics which deeply divided the nation. They wanted change. Hollande’s austerity policies and his alignment on Angela Merkel’s positions in Europe have dramatically failed to make a difference so far.The majority of the population even feels that there is a troubling continuity with Sarkozysm on major policy areas such as employment, pensions, benefits, wages, not to mention the neo-colonial war waged by French troops in Mali.

Now, the Hollande presidency is in tatters. A state scandal is threatening to engulf Hollande and the Socialist government. The person responsible for the crisis is Jérôme Cahuzac, who was the Budget Minister until two weeks ago. For the past few months, Cahuzac had been accused of having used a secret Swiss bank account to avoid paying taxes in France. (http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/04/after-cahuzac-scandal-hollande-presidency-tatters)